The One Question Eliot Spitzer Wouldn’t Answer Last Night

May 3, 2010

Given his recent round of press, Eliot Spitzer’s conversation at the 92nd Street Y last night with CBS News analyst Jeff Greenfield was, in a certain way, inevitable. At the beginning of the talk, Greenfield informed the audience that Spitzer told Greenfield he’d do the talk under no conditions, and Spitzer didn’t pass on any of the questions that Greenfield or the audience gave him… except for one.

At one point, Jeff Greenfield asked Spitzer why David Paterson had been forced out of the running for New York’s 2010 gubernatorial election. Spitzer’s response (paraphrased):

Spitzer: I’m…I’m going to take a pass on that one. I’m not saving the answer for my memoirs or anything, but that’s for another time. I’ll say that it’s an answer that speaks poorly of Albany, not David, and we’ll leave it at that.

Greenfield: Three more sentences, and we’d be there.

Full coverage on the rest of the conversation later today. We started to Tweet the event — which was pretty great — before a phone died out on us, but you can check out some of the early-on choice quotes from it here.